Interview with Fastgecko

The Path to a Successful Product Business: Interview With Daniel Angeloff from Fastgecko

Since we love to tell success stories from the WordPress ecosystem, we pestered Daniel Angeloff from Fastgecko with questions about his WP business. Find out what tips and wisdom he shared with us in the following interview.

Brief introduction - What is Fastgecko actually?

Fastgecko is currently the easiest and fastest WordPressplugin for membership and e-learning sites. Thanks to the intuitive user experience, Fastgecko enables anyone to automatically sell and deliver video courses and e-books on their WordPress website in under 30 minutes.

Our mission at Fastgecko is to develop the best tools to help people get their first sales in record time with their digital content, building a semi-automated cashflow business.

In our experience, far too many simply fail because of the technology and never get to their first online course sales. But especially in the beginning, this is the most important thing to stay motivated.

How did the idea for Fastgecko come about?

We have been working as an online marketing and web agency for several years now. The call for our own product was getting bigger and bigger, because we really wanted something that could also be sold "passively" via the Internet, without having to travel to customers permanently. So it came about that we started with online courses on Google Adwords. 

We were so convinced by the topic of e-learning that we gradually set up further online course projects in a wide variety of niches (such as medicinal plants, self-defence, etc.).

In the course of this project work, we realized that there is actually no simple and fast solution for WordPress to sell its online courses. The idea of Fastgecko was born!

Our ambition was to develop a solution that would allow anyone to create a complete members area for an e-learning product in less than 30 minutes. And we managed to do that 🙂

The normal working time with the solutions we worked with before was always around 8 hours - This just bothered us every time we created a new course.

Fastgecko Dashboard
Setup of a new course in the FastgeckoDashboard

What are your top 4 pieces of advice for someone looking to build passive income with online training?

1. test the market

The first step is always to check the market for demand. The worst thing that can happen to you is to create a product that nobody needs.

Just check if there are already some competing products. Also, you can use Google Keyword Planner to check how many people are searching for a solution to the problem you're covering in the course.

2. bring the customer from A to B

Many people overcomplicate the creation of an online course and include many features, which only confuse the end user. If a student doesn't get results from your course, they will most likely not buy any more products from you.

Therefore, try to structure the course in such a way that you guide your student step-by-step from the starting point to their goal.

3. keep at it

All beginnings are difficult - in online business, too. That's why you have to be patient and keep optimizing. The big money won't come by itself.

But once the whole thing is up and running and a few adjustments have been made, you'll have an "evergreen product" that will keep putting money in your pockets for a long time to come - and it's automated!

4. bonus advice

Our new YouTube channel 'Digigecko - Daniel Angeloff' offers weekly tips on the topic of online business from practice.

How can agencies and web designers benefit from Fastgecko?

Firstly, agencies and freelancers can of course very quickly sell their own online courses - filled with their valuable knowledge - with Fastgecko. Especially in the field of 'digital marketing and programming' there is a huge demand for good online courses.

Secondly, the market for digital information products is getting bigger and bigger, and this is not bypassing the "trainer, consultant and coaching scene". Thus, the demand for such e-learning solutions is also increasing more and more.

The cool thing is: Especially slightly larger companies in these industries are looking for "Done For You" services (D4U) for such e-learning solutions.

As a WordPress agency, in combination with Fastgecko, you can really serve this demand very well and get such lucrative orders (€ 4,000+) with requests for your own e-learning platform. Employee training portals can also be built with our system.

We also have our own Partner Programwhere we pay recurring commissions on referrals.

The Path to a Successful Product Business: Interview With Daniel Angeloff from Fastgecko

Has it been your goal for a while to develop a WordPress product at some point? In your experience, what are the advantages of a product business over working as a traditional WordPress agency?

Well, that it should be a WordPress product was not the goal from the beginning. But we had been considering going into the software field for a while.

In the end, we went into the product business because we think it's easier to systematize processes in the business, and that's an important topic for us in the founding team. Because systems are the only way to get more done with less time.

Unfortunately, our service contracts were often completely individual and difficult for us to structure. We simply spent too much time on administrative tasks that we couldn't charge the customer for.

What challenges do you face when building a product business?

Since we already had some WordPress development know-how through our agency business, this was not the biggest challenge so far. The biggest challenge in "online business" is definitely marketing.

If you sell a software product, you simply need many more new customers per month than with high-priced services. You also have to find out for yourself what you should focus on.

Here I would try to establish a good network with people who are following a similar path, but are already one step further, or hire a good coach.

Another "insider tip" here: Make sure you take a look at the US market. Here you can learn a lot, especially concerning online marketing. Partly we copy strategies from overseas 1:1, which work very well!

In your opinion, does it make sense for WP agencies and web designers to work on client projects and their own WordPress product, or should they focus on one area for the long term?

That's a good question 🙂 And I think it's also a question of where you personally want to go.
For us, the long-term plan is definitely to create even more WordPress products and online courses for our target audience, as this has become our passion.

The agency business runs in parallel for us and generates more funds to grow our online business faster. Our goal is also to run our business completely online from anywhere in the world. 

I do believe that it is important to focus on one area. But I think it's even more important to systematise processes in the business so that you never have to do everything yourself and can concentrate on sales.

The Path to a Successful Product Business: Interview With Daniel Angeloff from Fastgecko

If you had to go back in time with what you know today, what would you do differently in terms of your business?

Well, there are actually exactly two things I would do differently:

First, I would focus 100 percent on sales. Before I put time and energy into a nice website or blog, I would rather make a sales page first and try to sell the product. Only after I have mastered the sales process would I then tackle other things, like a nice website etc., otherwise you quickly lose focus and make little or no money.

Secondly: Systematise tasks! In the past, I often did things too individually and completely differently each time. In the process, you lose focus and waste a lot of time. Today, I try to standardise all tasks and can easily hand them over to freelancers and employees. That way you can grow faster!

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Conclusion

In summary, Daniel's experience and tips for a successful online business can be broken down to the following five points:

  1. Analyze the international market and the need for your product
  2. Focus on sales first and foremost
  3. Create a systematization of your processes
  4. Automate as many tasks as possible
  5. Even if success is not immediate, don't give up!

Daniel had not only helpful tips, but also a special deal for OUT OF THE BOX readers in his luggage: With the coupon code Raidboxes you get 10 percent discount on all Fastgecko products. If you write after the purchase in addition still another E-Mail to daniel@fastgecko.org with the subject Raidboxes you will even get the training 'Membership Mastery' worth 197 Euro for free.

In this sense we thank you for the interesting interview and say goodbye with a greeting to Austria! 

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